Red Dirt Dreaming Part Two - The Pilbara

This week 360documentaries drives south from the Kimberley to the Pilbara –beautiful, remote and the powerhouse of the Australian economy.

The Pilbara may sit alongside the Kimberley on the map but it’s a different world; a world of fluorescent yellow and blue, hi-visibility mining shirts and steel-capped boots; a world where mile after mile of powerlines rudely interrupt the watercolour landscape that stretches as far as you can see; a world that’s been inhabited by Aboriginal people for tens of thousands of years; and a world where indigenous poverty and great mining wealth collide.

Western Australia’s resources industry earns about $110billion a year and most of that is thanks to the Pilbara. The region produces 75% of Australia’s oil and gas and digs up 20% of the world’s iron ore.

The Pilbara might be raking in the cash for Australia, but many see it as ruined - a mining wasteland, pristine environments and cultural heritage lost to mining, and towns overrun by the army of highly-paid fly-in/fly-out (FIFO) workers manning the boom.

This is where the people of the pristine Kimberley are looking to see what their world could become.